


(the burden of) overproof

by pineovercoat



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Canon Compliant, KH3 spoilers, M/M, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Rites of Passage, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-25 12:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineovercoat/pseuds/pineovercoat
Summary: presque vu-  "almost seen"; the intense feeling of being on the very brink of a powerful epiphany, insight, or revelation, without actually achieving the revelation“So. Tomorrow is the end of it all,” Riku mused, pulling Sora’s thoughts from him effortlessly. “One way or another. Victory or oblivion, right?”





	(the burden of) overproof

**Author's Note:**

> spotify shuffle:  
>  _and if we should die tonight, then we should all die together_  
>  _raise a glass of wine for the last time_
> 
> me: [soft but passionate] fuck you...... /horfs down that melancholy

Fate wasn’t exactly Sora’s area of expertise, but even he had to grant the stars this one.

It made sense, in a cyclical kind of way, that they’d find themselves on the Destiny Islands on the night before the close of their journey. It was where it all began, after all. Master Yen Sid had released them from their war council with a wave of his hand, and really, where else _would_ they go but back home?

“Shore leave,” Lea had joked, before boarding his own ship to Twilight Town. Sora briefly wondered why there, of all places, or maybe really why _alone_ , but he didn’t ask- if it was important to him, that was that, and he had a good enough guess, besides.

The sun chased their own ship all the way from the unnerving stillness of the Mysterious Tower to the rolling surf of the Destiny Islands until finally, it overtook them. Sora fidgeted all the way through disembarking, half convinced that if he only kept moving, the day would last forever. But the sky had already been painted in golds and oranges and pinks when Kairi had pulled him aside to the usual spot, and it was rapidly turning blue and purple and silverbright under the rising light of the moon now.

She left, and by the time he stepped back over the rickety bridge with one promise fulfilled and another to keep having taken its place, the sun had given way for the night to gather cool over the islands, dispelling the day’s heat in one fell swoop. In the wake of it all, he was left cold, and for more than just the night chill.

Bittersweet- there was no other way to describe how the paopu had tasted. It couldn’t be anything else, not with the undertow of fear in the gesture, though he’d managed a smile for her anyway. It was supposed to be something nice, the mirror of a childhood promise, a neat little echo like the winds that sometimes whistled through the Secret Place, all tied off with a perfect bow, but a nervousness gnawed at his gut that Kairi had even thought it was necessary.

If exchanging the paopu was an echo, then the separation was a roar. How many times had they all lost each other already? He didn’t want her to be afraid any more than he didn’t want to be afraid himself. Back and forth and back and forth, around in circles- and him, in the center of it all, not knowing what to do, or what to think, or what to believe, as awkward and unsure as he’d never really had the chance to feel, not with so much to do, and so much expected of him-

He wanted to be alone. He wanted to be surrounded and never left vulnerable to a single thought. More than anything, he just wanted the noise to quiet a little. Maybe Riku had had the right idea- nothing more calming than a beach.

He’d lost sight of him for a little while, when he’d gone to leave the paopu Kairi had given him by the old drawing in the Secret Place, by the door where it all began. If it felt a little bit like he was hiding, well… he was the only one who had to know.

Riku had made himself scarce when he emerged from the cave, intent on a trip through memory- which he understood, about as much as he could, anyway- but he’d taken up his vigil again sometime soon after, and hardly moved since.

Even now, his eyes were on the horizon, the way they always seemed to be- _nothing ever changes_ , Sora mused, legging it over to the shore as picked his way through shells and driftwood over to where he sat, the sprawl of the water’s surface gleaming before him like clouded glass. It was nice to have something to rely on, though- even if it was just the shape of Riku’s silhouette, solid against the waves.

“ _Riku!_ ” he announced himself, a short second before skidding to a stop at his side.

“Sora,” he answered, leaning neatly away from the coming spray of sand.

Sora grinned. He’d heard him coming. He always seemed to know these things, seconds before Sora even did.

“Hey.” He nudged his boot with his outsole, rubber thudding heavy against leather. “Time enough to yourself yet?”

Riku snorted, gathering his knees to his chest, but otherwise remained unmoved.

It was permission enough.

“You should get some rest,” he scolded, even as he dropped to his customary seat on his left side. Riku made space for him immediately, dropping his left leg flat so they could see each other. Pleased, Sora gave the thin layer of sand stuck to his pants a cursory brush. He knew well enough it would just end up everywhere regardless.

Riku lifted one shoulder, noncommittal, then laid his cheek over his knee, tucking his nose into the crook of his elbow.

“You’ve been here all night,” Sora accused, jabbing a finger his way.

“Not _all_ night.” He swayed out of reach easily. “Not yet, anyway.”

Sora cut a look at him, curious. He was silent, for a moment. Not even his breath was audible above the thundering crash of the ocean. There was only the steady rise and fall of his hunched shoulders. From the shifting clouds to the earth, it was as if the entire night breathed in time with him, the rhythm of the waves and the gently whistling trees and Riku’s own body all moving to some invisible conductor’s baton. Like a clock ticking. Sora swallowed. Like time running out.

“Riku...?”

“I’m gonna sleep here,” he explained, pushing the words out slowly, like the air was still thick and humid and impossible, like what they had was still an endless store of lazy summer days and not this- one more sunrise before the storm. Maybe the last of them all. He blinked a glance at him from the very corners of his eyes- the harshness of their whites was softened by the warm curve of a smile.

“Yeah?” Sora whispered, snagged on the edge of it. Riku didn’t do that often- smile. It was a nice one, too. Sora wished he wasn’t in the habit of saving the best of them for the end of the world.

“Yeah.” He shifted, skimming the curled fingers of his left hand back and forth over the sand, thick dark sugar crumbling under the steady drag of his knuckles. “Think I’ll watch the sun come up over the water.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, Sora thought. If Riku let him, he wouldn’t mind joining in. “Like a sleepover,” he said, hesitant, but hopeful. They used to do that kind of thing all the time, up in the treehouse.

Riku’s hand stilled. He cleared his throat. “Aqua… the Realm of Darkness, and how she-” He cut himself off with a frustrated noise. “I guess it made me think about how much every day goes by, and we don’t-”

“I get it,” Sora said softly, tapping their shoes together again.

Riku lifted his head. “Yeah?”

The faint impression of a seam bloomed red over his cheek in the pale light. Sora’s mouth twisted. He wanted to draw a thumb over it, help the circulation along- to bring blood and life back into it. End the pain. Mend the hurt. He looked at his own hands. But there was so much of it, and he was just one person-

He shook his head to clear it.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Maybe not as much as you, but… even just a regular old day. A sunrise. It means so much more than we think.” Frowning, he drew his fingers in, until the nails bit even through his gloves. “That’s what we’re fighting for. More of those days.”

“Yeah,” Riku agreed. “You never think you’ll miss the same old until it’s gone.”

He pulled himself upright, shrugging into his jacket. It was a thin ward against the night and everything unseen within it. Sora burrowed further into his own.

“It’s funny,” Riku said slowly. “I used to spend every day imagining what life was like out there. The Destiny Islands didn’t matter at all. Now sometimes I wonder about who we’d be if we never left. What we missed out on.”

There was a dull gleam as he moved. Sora spied it out of the corner of his eye, throwing light near his feet. Now that he was looking for it, he saw that Riku had a hand at his far side, and something balanced under his palm, half-nestled in the sand, tucked against the outside of his boot.

It was a bottle, Sora realized. He leaned over, straining for a better look. Some sort of dark liquor- like the kind they’d always eyed in their parents’ cabinets but had never actually gotten around to stealing, stowed away in the cool and dark.

Well, he thought, swallowing hard, the night was cool and dark enough now.

The last time they’d sat together like this, darkness had stretched on before them, unbound, until the rest of forever faded into the unknown. Side by side at the Dark Margin, with no border but the water’s edge- even then, it hadn’t been impossible to cross, but it’d felt enough like an end. A place to rest, to spend their days, in a world where maybe the sun was a distant memory, but time didn’t seem to matter.

Sora’s shoulders went stiff at the thought; here, the hours were everything, and they were slipping away, impossibly fast. It wasn’t fair, because if he knew anything, it was that time was time, and time wasn’t _supposed_ to be like that. It was supposed to be stable, unchanging. A day was a day, an hour was an hour, and that was that. But now his hours felt like seconds, and they were all falling through his hands faster than he ever could have anticipated, and there were so many things he wanted to do, and there just wasn’t any time.

“You went home?” Sora whispered, eyes fixed dumbly on his hands. He indicated the bottle with a jerk of his chin.

Riku’s eyes were back on the distant expanse of the sky. “No.”

“Right.”

He hadn’t either. There was home, and then there was _home._  Going back only to say goodbye again so soon felt unfair. Besides, something about it didn’t seem quite right, and he was a little bit worried that that ‘something’ was him, and going back would only serve to prove it. That he was a puzzle piece, and somewhere along the way, he’d gotten warped, and wouldn’t fit anymore. Regardless, it was a weight he could save for after the battle. He had enough to carry, and he’d much rather wait, and come home to stay for good.

“So. Tomorrow is the end of it all,” Riku mused, pulling Sora’s thoughts from him effortlessly. “One way or another. Victory or oblivion, right?”

Sora’s blood went cold.

He shoved the dread down, shaking his head until the ends of his hair danced over his skin, soft and dry over the cooling sweat on the back of his neck. “Uh-uh. No ‘ _or '."_

Riku laughed, wrapping his fingers around the bottle’s stout neck. “What do you say to catching up a bit? Making up for lost time. We shouldn’t drink _that_ much, but I thought maybe…”

He made a soft noise, looking down at the thing, like he wasn’t sure exactly what he thought. A thin line formed between his brows, his mouth pinched. He rolled the bottle back and forth between his palms, the liquid within swaying like an oil-and-water hourglass tipped on its side, as if to say- we can fight. We can _lose_. So why can’t we-?

And why couldn’t they?

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything. Or maybe it was just another thing, like any other thing, Sora thought, swallowing past the lump in his throat. Like wayfinders, or pinky promises, or paopu fruits. But he wanted something of his own to share with Riku, too.

“Yeah,” he agreed, thumping his open hand down onto the wet sand. Somewhere, across the years, on this same island, he could hear himself- _no fair, Riku! You were the king the last two days, that means I get to be king today and you’re the knight so what I say goes and I say we’re gonna play swords-_ “Yeah, let’s.”

And that was all Riku needed to hear, apparently. He planted the bottle in the sand between them, flicked it with his middle finger and thumb. A moment later, he shook his hand out, hissing through his teeth; Sora laughed brightly, in spite of the dark. With a lukewarm glare and a quick turn of his wrist, the cap came loose. Riku looked at it for a moment before palming it.

“What do we toast?”

“Hmm. To...” _Victory._ The word settled sourly over his tongue. He didn’t care about winning. Not for its own sake, anyway. He shook his head, and thought of better things.

“To rafts. And adventures. And sea salt ice cream. Music! And magic! And every chance there is to try something new. All the important things!” He met Riku’s eyes evenly, placing a hand over his heart. “Like a regular old day on the beach with your friends.”

Another smile curved over his face, smoothing the lines that had settled there. “To what matters.”

Sora returned it, cheeks warming. “Yeah. To what matters.”

Riku extended the bottle to him, _after you,_ and Sora took it, hesitating for only a second before taking a generous gulp. The liquor seared down his throat, leaving a burnt sugar spice in his mouth even as it moved to smolder in his stomach like liquid fire. The sweetness spoiled quickly, though, turning into something undeniably foul. His nose wrinkled.

Wincing, he stretched his hand out to Riku, who plucked the bottle from him with a lofty snort. A moment later, his head tipped back, and a grimace only a little more dignified than his own flitted over his face. _Hah_. He passed it back again with the slightest brush of his fingers, like he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

Sora made a face at the bottle, then took another short pull. “Blechhh- you couldn’t find _anything_ to chase it with?”

“Guess I didn’t think that far ahead.” His voice curled with amusement as he gestured towards the seawater. “You wanna give _that_ a try, by all means.”

“Oh, sure, if you wanna be short one Guardian of Light. Have fun pulling that weight without me-”

Riku let out a sound almost like a giggle, bending forward with the force of his silent laughter. Sora watched him, flushed with his success, or maybe with the spirits- that was an easy enough culprit to point his finger at, anyway.

It was _nice_ , seeing him so happy. So much of it was in his eyes, too- it wasn’t hard to remember how the picture had finally been completed with Riku removing his blindfold, back in The World That Never Was, the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners when he’d teased him, finally close enough to touch.

He tapped his ankle with the bottle. Riku got the hint. Their fingers brushed, and Sora snatched his hand back to dig the heel of his palms into the sand at his side, relishing its grounding bite.

“Almost feels like we should be singing,” he said, coasting on the warmth starting to pool in his chest.

“Hah!” Riku barked, wiping the backs of his knuckles across his mouth. He handed the bottle over again. “ _No_. Nice try.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Sora wheedled, leaning in close to accept it. “I bet you can! And I took lessons from the court composer of Atlantica, you know- I even had a recital! I can show you if you want!”

“Save it.” Riku kicked sand at him playfully. “Gotta have something to look forward to.”

The sea breezes lifted his hair, skirting over to pull at Riku’s too, and Sora couldn’t help looking him over fondly. He’d grown so much. They both had, during all that time apart- but now he was here, beside him. One deliberate movement away at most, and it was hard not to notice how his hair swooped carefully over his face but stuck up in stubborn cowlicks at the crown, messy and boyish, and how that played against the proud line of his back, the breadth of his shoulders.

Quiet but strong, such a commanding presence- would a Keyblade Master even want to go home? Stay in one place, after everything?

“Hey, Riku,” Sora whispered. “What do you want to do, after tomorrow?”

“Hear you sing,” Riku said drolly. “I just told you. C’mon, keep up.”

“ _Riku!_  I was being serious!”

“So was I.” He inclined his head, sobered. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far.”

Sora’s heart sank. “Riku...”

“It’s not like _that_ ,” he said impatiently. “It’s just… everything’s been leading up to this.” He cut a hand through the air, fingers swiping across the expanse of the sky. “I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself without a fight.”

It was something Sora forced himself not to think about, more often than not. He chewed on his lip, but try as he might, no perfect answer presented itself. There probably wasn’t one. Perfect didn’t really matter, though. He offered him a tentative smile. “I mean… I guess we live, Riku.”

Riku laughed, tossing his head back. “What’s  _that_ like?”

Sora rolled his eyes, elbowing him. “Guess we’ll just have to find out! Another adventure, right?”

“Yeah.” He opened his mouth, like he was about to say something else, but thought better of it.

He stood instead, and held his right hand aloft, partially eclipsing the light of the moon and the stars. It shone brilliantly while the night sky framed him, and as he shifted, broke the border of his body, spilling over like floodwaters, like it could take him, pull him apart and fade him away.

Sora gasped. The bottle slipped from his fingers, spilling out between them.

“Oh, _no_ ,” he moaned. Half-leaden, and half-weightless, worlds away, he staggered to his feet, staring blankly down at the dark stain spreading like ink over the sand. Dragging a hand over his face jerkily, he did his best to swallow down the lingering burn, but it looped a circuit from his throat to his eyes without his permission. “I’m sorry, Riku-”

“Don’t be,” Riku demurred, ducking down to snag it. “That one’s for everyone else. For everyone before.”

His pulse thudded dully in his ears. _For everyone before-_

“Maybe they were looking out for us,” Riku went on, unaware. “Big day tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow_ wrapped its fingers around his heart.

“Or maybe they were just thirsty,” Sora managed. Miraculously, his voice sounded steady.

“Hah. Greedy.” A moment later, he resurfaced with the bottle suspended from his hooked ring finger. Moonlight glinted off of it, and off his skin, too. Light, all the time, gathering over Riku- Sora’s heart seized. Why did the sight scare him so much? It didn’t make sense.

“I’ll go break it,” Riku offered gamely.

Sora tried for a grin, hoping it didn’t look as watery as it felt. Even if it was only a stopgap, smiling always seemed to pull him through when nothing else would. “For good luck?”

Riku pretended to inspect the empty bottle, cavalier. “Getting rid of the evidence.” A haughty, playful sort of look pulled at his face before swiftly settling into a more reassuring one. “But no, I don’t think so. We won’t need it.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

Sora fought down a shiver. His fingertips buzzed, and his throat felt unpleasantly hot, and that awful taste still sat over his tongue like a thin veil. It seemed to him that more words might be able to wash it down, but the ones he wanted, he couldn’t quite figure out. He itched to grab Riku’s jacket, to keep him from walking away. That felt more important than anything, to keep him close, like if he didn’t-

Frowning, he reached out. Riku, as always, met him halfway, clapping a hand to his forearm, his fingers grasping firmly over cloth and muscle. Sora looked down at his hand, miserable. He was so reluctant to touch now. He hated it. It used to be nothing to him, to throw an arm around his shoulders, dig his knuckles against his scalp, shove him sprawling into the sand only to tumble down after him a second later.

He flexed his arm under Riku’s grip. It wouldn’t take much, he’d hardly have to move- just one quick motion to shift things as they were so that Riku was really touching him, and not his gauntlet, or the loose fabric of his sleeve, or the stretch of cloth over his back-

“Sora,” Riku said, stepping close, his bearing suddenly hardened steel. “Hey.”

The look he levelled was so serious that it killed the slightly panicked laugh bubbling up inside of him. Whatever he was about to say, mouth half-open on a fortifying breath, it felt like he’d heard it once before, like he knew it twice over, or maybe even more than that- something else in the sad vein of things said through the thin gap of a closing door-

The wind blew, and the moment passed.

“No ‘ _or_ ’,” he said firmly. “You said it yourself.” His grip gentled, just a bit, and his voice followed suit. “I’m counting on you to believe it.”

“You bet,” Sora agreed, blinking hard. And with Riku beside him, they weren’t just empty words. He _did_ believe it. Gathering up his courage, he took Riku’s arm, mirroring his grip, and held on tight.

Startled, Riku’s eyes dipped down to their linked arms, his lashes casting heavy shadow over green, and all of a sudden, he was himself, same as ever, but more than that, he was light falling over planes and angles, making up skin and hair and muscle and bone, working together to somehow, miraculously, draw up the shape of a person he cared about more than anything, to house a heart that could never be duplicated or replaced.

Riku was Riku, and he was the only one like him across _all_ the worlds, and Sora somehow had the sheer dumb luck to, of all possible times and places, be born on the same island, and never have to live a single day without him- at least, not until all this began.

_I don’t think I know what I’d do without you,_ Sora realized. _Really without you, not just... chasing each other across the worlds._ He opened his mouth, halfway to saying it, willing to figure it out on the fly, but by the time his heart had well and truly lodged itself in his throat, Riku’s eyes softened, satisfied. He gave a tight nod, squeezed his wrist once, and let go.

Sora watched him walk away, bottle swinging from his right hand even though the rest of him hardly dared to sway out of line. The sight of his back dug claws deep into his heart, familiar, and unwelcome, and called up enough dread to draw real tears to his eyes from a ready spring bubbling up from inside of him-

Sora breathed in, then out, then shut his eyes tightly, steadying himself. _It’s nothing_ , he told himself, hands balling into fists at his sides. _And if it’s not, whatever it is, it’s definitely not the end. I won’t let it be._

Resolved, he opened his eyes. Riku was a few paces ahead now. Not too far- moving so slowly that it could only be deliberate, so that he could catch up, so he let what was left of the fire fill him and lead him, stumbling, to follow Riku’s footsteps into tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, sora & KH. 😭 first fic post-kh3 , and it delighted me and hurt my feelings lots in turns!! I got more than a few ideas/endless wells of raw emotion in the wake of it, which is the worst when you’ve got standing WIPs, but I couldn’t really move forward with anything else until I at least got this one out of my system. thank you [parkadescandal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal) for your amazing and helpful insights!!
> 
> song moods- just. Ludo. lotsa dreamy, sad Ludo, and then one fiatc:[[x]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJFUscwZIvk) [[x]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n6yBGKDzrg) [[x]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJpIfpTTxow) [[x]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uzOY1h7jyQ)
> 
> additionally: [clears throat]  
> R,iku,, 
> 
> thank you for your time.


End file.
